Thursday, 30 January 2014

I had the lazies...the laziest couldn't-lift-a-finger-to-write-even-one-blogpost lazies.

Lethargic might begin to describe it.

Was it the long, long summer holiday?

We had a looong 6 weeks, of which 4 were spent by the sea, of which 3 were splashed in blasting hot sunshine and blue skies - not quite the usual during December on the Garden Route where you'll often have windy days.

Hartenbos has the finest, softest beach

Was it the excitement of planning a new house?

Fourteen years ago we had the opportunity to build a new house, and now we have another take. Lucky to have found an architect who 'got' us, and could produce a concept within a week.

Was it the worry over my youngest's little friend who was diagnosed with kidney cancer the week after schools closed?

He's had chemo, and a tumour and kidney was removed, and is bravely facing another 27 sessions of chemo, but he's doing well, and his parents are absolute beacons of hope and faith.

Was it the overwhelmedness (that might be my own new word) at the outpouring of love and caring from Ons Hekel-members for a fellow member whose daughter had to undergo open heart surgery?

It went well, she was discharged, sent us a message...and then suddenly died :-(

Members spontaneously arranged for a blanket to be hooked for her mother in memory of the daughter. We're hooking 20 cm squares with some purple in it (her favourite colour).

Was it the thought of the 45 text books I had to cover for school, and then start gr 4 again, 32 years after passing it the first time?Gr 4 changed quite a bit :-)

Or what is I Just Plain Lazy?That might be it...

Joining ancient rectangular doilies to use as bunting during a quick overnight break to Rietfontein Ostrich Palace

The tan is still there (plus the extra kg or two...), the plans for submission are being finalised, we came through a week of two anniversary dates and three birthday parties in two days, I enrolled for a year of Bible School, my youngest have lost his two front teeth, my eldest decided he is going to love Natural Science in Gr 4 (good boy!), my husband is furiously training for Ironman, my ferritin stores are back to normal, my domestic worker has gone on pension and ... The Boss will be in town this week! And I'm going to try and stay awake for the whole thing. No choice there, seeing as it's standing tickets :-D

I did manage to complete a tiny very few little things, mostly crocheting while we were driving across the country and back.

Southbound through the Karoo

This flag bunting was designed by my friend Cornel and featured in the Idees magazine a year or so ago. The idea was to use it as tree decorations (the young karee outside our little beach house), but it also ended up as being used for little yarn bombs. I used Raeesah cotton, a DK yarn with the most beautiful, solid, clear colours, but spliiiiity, splitty, splitty. Very much the same as Drops Cotton Light that some UK/European bloggers complained about. My sis even abandoned her plans of joining and edging a baby blanket with it, and sent me the whole batch to try out/re-distribute. I kept one.

However, it worked out fine, and I left my tiny bunting at a favourite farm stall (Camdeboo Farm Stall in Aberdeen), at a get-together with fellow hookers in Klein Brakrivier, another old favourite roadstop - Smitswinkel Farm stall, a new favourite LYS-when-on-holiday (Needle Nook in George), De Vette Mossel beach restaurant in Tergniet, and Bizarre Bazaar, a great new second hand shop in Mossel Bay.

Hooking my way through the holiday

There was some left for my tree, with a few stars.

I yarn-bombed the nearby stop sign, as nobody stops there...

STOP now!

And I completed exactly a measly five squares of The Summer Throw that was going be finished...and then back home I realised I used a different hook size to the first four...

I probably wasn't concentrating too hard...

Oh jeepers tog.

So I frogged four, re-hooked the lot, and completed my purple Anja-square today.

Also the Mt Vernon square, with a few rows added, unblocked here

The anniversary. We've been married 18 years :-0 Where did the time go?

As we're not the traditional anniversary-gift-type, we settled into the happy arrangement of me going to the Le Creuset shop to get something "for us". This year, however, I was ambushed by this chair en route to Le C...and after some sweet talk it now resides in the home office! So I declare the appropriate 18th year anniversary as "leather swivel chair".